Two decades and a year
I come back to Darjeeling.

The blaring horns
have snuffed out
the pines' whispers,

and the glorious hilltops
retreat beyond
the many hilltop hotels.

Richmond hill is rich
with structures
that have made men richer
and traders have ensured
Nature here has no future.

The once magnificent Mall
has grown so small
you wonder if it's there
you laid your soul bare
to the woman of your love.

Darjeeling,
once where
she rode a wild horse
I would never come back.

And I will have no remorse.

I have pages of prayers.
assimilated.  I saw them
yesterday.
I've
Clipped them together
with a
yellow butterfly.

Some
I wrote myself.

On nights I would
sit reading, lonely.
Days there,
were~~ sounds

remembered,~~
of music
coming always
from a farther room.

I meditate.  I fly off
to places where we
made love long ago.

You were love's young
dream.  I, a reflection.
always,the Other
side, a mirror's
back.
~~
Unreflected.

Incomprehensible.

A dichotomy
interrupted.


Caroline Shank
January 25, 2025

spectacle society or a faceless society? who could tell. after historical laughter comes a historic dread. when the sky is the limit of power we are doomed to endure the mania of failing floors. nothing is trully free to harm reality, not even poetry, and whose reality is more real. words like disfigured worlds,  they hack the body time. what is beauty and what is truth, this complex breathing creature in an unknowable form, this  hidden vulnerability: we can't bear who we are, we want to sink in a history without memory.

It was another strange dream
Suddenly I found myself looking out an upstairs window at people arriving below
Then I thought "Wait a minute, where am I ? What house am I in ?
I don't have an upstairs, I live in a bungalow (only a ground floor)"

When I went downstairs there was this big Christmas tree up
I thought to myself "But I...I didn't put up my Christmas tree yet

And there were lots of people there and some familiar faces
And they all seemed to be smiling at me, as if accepting me there
As if there was nothing unusual, as if I belonged there.

It was like a party was going on
And then I seen my brother sitting amongst them all
One of his hands was bandaged
I didn't think it polite to ask him about it
Beside him was another younger relative
I was amazed astounded because this relative he had died a few years earlier, in an accident
Yet here... here he was right here before me

I thought to myself "This must be some kind of... some kind of Parallel
   Universe I'm in where things turned out differently"
It made me wonder was my own world  then just an illusion
It seemed so far away now... so distant

Suddenly I started to get a little afraid, I thought "But I don't know this world...this place
I don't... I don't belong here
How do I get out of here
How do I get back... back to my own world....  

Soon after this I awoke...again back in my own bed...back in my own world.

Forgiveness (2013)


I learned as a young young girl that there are things that are unforgivable, things that are inconceivable, except that they happened.  I learned that
no one cares
whether or not you forgive them, or her, or him.  Forgiveness is a NON issue, actually.

Life moves on, with or without our sorrows or bitternesses.  It just moves on.  We go with it, unless we choose not to.  Should we choose the "absurd" path of going on with it, it still makes no difference whether or not we "forgive".

Forgiveness is for God, whatever your relationship is to God.  Our job is to reach through the minutes of our days and to be the best or kindest, or not. There is no choice but  to "fare forth".  The pain of abuse or insult rides with us.  It just does. It's where we go with it that makes us, breaks us, or takes us on our way.  We become our best idea of ourselves because we know the difference.  All learning is from analogy.  If someone hurts me, do I not bleed (etc.).  Do I not know how to BE in this world with kindnesses because I have known cruelty?  Of course I do.

I have known extraordinary kindness and love.  I have known these things when I have least deserved them.  I learned how to love from the amazing love which has been shown me.  I have known Gratitude and it is the Mantra of my life in my last act.

Deception, in whatever its form, cannot cut us, unless it matters so much we are willing to dwell in some mire of useless opinions.  What is important to me is contained in a really quite small circle.  "The rest is not my business."   T.S. Eliot.

It is irrelevant, this idea we have about "forgiveness".  It's arrogance in extremis.   If someone causes me pain I really cannot do anything about it except to remove the source of it.

I am, beyond belief sorry for the pain I have caused others.   All I can do is fall on my knees in gratitude that the next minute or hour has pushed me into the next minute or hour and if I hang onto God I will go into the next flowing parcel of time with wounds that are healing, with sores that, Thank God, show me the direction in which to go to find, again, a place of peace,
people who do love me and whom I love.  
I have lived to know many many Blessings and Gifts.  (If I had waited to feel "forgiven" I would still be mired in pain.  It is the gift of Acceptance, unconditional Acceptance which sustains me.)

Grace is not found in concepts like "forgiveness" but in the constant acts of love.

It is not my place to Judge.  God knows this.  He most surely does

I am not this
unimaginable set
of we, two twigs
like darlings
      entwined
                and
moving lazy
up a tree,
still green
moss covered
              stone hands
warmed by the
sun and so
much
more
We
Together we might
make something
better, here inside
the blanket cover
of soil, of night
of stars and
even a well
lit
moon
I am not this
intangible
forgettable
and rarely used
tense, future
perfect and
                  continuous
Nope.
not
me

We need another Martin Luther King
Today now more than ever
Someone to take the faithful leap
That will bring us all together

Who sees the plight of man for what it is
All one race, no color
Where together in harmony we all shall stand
Sister to sister, brother to brother

A leader with a vision
With open arms and callused hands
That will peacefully fight for all that's right
Over every square inch of this land

To lift us out of this world in doubt
Not silent on what really matters
Raising our voices in joyful sound
A world where we love each other

One who hears the righteous call
And says here I am send me
For freedoms sake above it all
Like Martin Luther King